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Seems to me, none of the Democrats' options look great now.
Stick with Biden-Harris, come what may. But can he handle a full campaign season? Will he have another Senior Moment? Will all the big donors believe he can do a full campaign without one? If his handlers keep him hidden away for the whole season, the voters will likely guess why and may react accordingly.
Somehow dump Biden, full steam ahead with Harris-?. But is Harris much better of a candidate than Biden? What kind of influence will they need to convince Biden of this and how will it look if he doesn't go along so easily? But at least it isn't too bureaucratically weird.
Somehow dump both Biden and Harris and run a campaign with some decent Governor or Senator. Might be a better candidate than either of the others, but how will the bureaucratic weirdness that would be necessary to do this affect the voters' confidence in the Democrat ticket? How much of a mess might Biden and/or Harris make on the way out? Not to mention the optics of kneecapping the female POC with the progressive wing.
I don't really buy this. People are voting against Biden and Trump more than they're voting for them, and a young and confident voice saying all the right things will pick up a lot of votes, I think. "They're both too old" is an extremely common position, and I think that'll dominate any concerns about someone who wins a second "primary".
In terms of accusations / insults, past Dem nomination fights were bloody but that didn't really spill over into the general. And we're still months out, elections take around a month in some nations. In terms of throwing up procedural / legal issues, I doubt that's too big of an issue.
I think it's a much bigger problem with the progressive wing of the elites than it is with the voters. Could just go Whitmer w/ black VP or something.
What I'm talking about is, most of the discussion has assumed that both Biden and Harris agree to step down voluntarily. What happens if one or both of them don't? Does the Democrat party actually have good options to replace them without their cooperation? How long would that process take, and how sketchy would it look?
If anything like that happens, I would presume the Dem party leadership expects it to all happen behind closed doors. If it ends up taking months and has at least bits of it leaking out into the public, well, it looks pretty banana-republic to me. Though maybe not necessarily more so than all the other stuff that's happened over the last 8 years? Maybe the voters won't care that much if they manage to get somebody young and confident in there somehow, or maybe not.
Yeah, most Biden-alternative discussion is premised on Biden choosing to back out, since he controls the delegates. There's a general sense there's a solid chance this happens.
Delegates could, in theory, reject Biden, the delegates are only obligated to "in all good conscience reflect the sentiments of those who elected them". This seems difficult and unlikely though.
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Exactly. That's the point I've been trying to make here. Realistic assessment is that the Dems are deep underdogs for the presidency after that debate. Biden was already behind, which is bad, and he lost ground, which is worse, but worst of all by far he clearly lacks the juice to make up that kind of ground. Any chance the Dems have of winning is relying on Trump to self immolate. They're picking among bad options to cauterize the wound.
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